


Earthquakes

by SealandRocks



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Earthquakes, Graphic Description, M/M, Skating, im sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-31 03:36:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13966521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SealandRocks/pseuds/SealandRocks
Summary: Inspired by Yuzuru Hanyu's story of surviving an earthquake while skating. Yuuri and Viktor find themselves in an earthquake during practice. How will they get out of this one?





	Earthquakes

Ice was always harder when it was hit with your entire body. When Yuuri first learned to do jumps, he had quickly learned to keep his tongue far away from his teeth because of how they would clack together when he landed just a bit too hard. He knew to keep his arms in and lose, to not try and catch himself, and to keep his head as far away from the ice as possible, but somehow the pain was never something he got used to. It was always sharp and cold and solid, like breaking a bone. He would always stand beside the idea that ice was harder than concrete.

Viktor, that perfect man, never really expressed the same thoughts, but then Yuuri hadn’t seen him actually fall in a long time. Sure, Viktor had to touch the ice sometimes, and he didn’t always land all his jumps, but somehow it was always graceful. Yuuri landed like a bird falling out of a tree, but Viktor slid into a prone position like he meant to be there the entire time. He only ever really noticed the difference between them on the days that they were practicing pair skating.

“You reduced your rotations again, Yuuri. Should we change the jump organization?” Viktor extended a hand to help Yuuri up, smile casual and easy on his lips. Yuuri smiled back, a grimace flickering over his face as he got up. Something certainly was not right in his chest, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t skate through.

“No, I’ll get it. I just need more speed going in.” Yuuri squeezed Viktor’s hand and released him, skating back into the opening position. Just a few more runs through and he would get it, he was sure.

Viktor’s skates only made the softest hiss of noise as he slid behind him, guiding Yuuri’s body through the initial step sequence. They skated around each other in silent circles, their eyes meeting in a tiny shared moment of intimacy. It reminded Yuuri of last year, when he would be on the ice and Viktor would watch from the sidelines with such love in his eyes that Yuuri would be intoxicated by the end of the performance.

The pair parted slightly, gaining speed with backwards crossovers to launch themselves into a tandem jump. Viktor landed with ease, while Yuuri was a little shaky. It wasn’t much to recover from, however, and the performance continued smoothly. Yuuri fell during a jump towards the end but managed to push himself off the ice and finish strong. Afterwards, however, Yuuri found himself in a coughing fit. His chest hurt more, but he refused to think that he had bruised a rib.

“Yuuri!” Viktor cried, holding onto his lover as his body convulsed with coughs. A while later, Yuuri managed to catch his breath, and smiled up at Viktor to ease his worry.

“Don’t worry, I’m fine. Just out of breath.”

Viktor’s brow furrowed, obviously not convinced.

“Let’s call it a day.” Viktor tried pulling Yuuri along towards the exit, but Yuuri held firm.

“Not yet, I want to get this jump down. Just a few more minutes.”

Viktor sighed, but his smile gave him away. Yuuri went to work, narrowing his skating down to just jumps. He fell an additional two times, but on the third attempt he held strong, spurring wonderful praise from Viktor. Yuuri grinned, skating towards his lover happily. He could basically see Viktor planning out what they would be cooking for dinner from across the rink.

Yuuri’s skate quivered underneath him. The hush that normally accompanied the ice was broken gently, with just a whisper of movement that shook Yuuri down to his core before he recognized what was happening. A few yards away, Viktor’s eyes widened, his body seizing up as his skates began to skitter below him.

Yuuri grew up living through earthquakes, given that Hasetsu was built on top of a giant ring of volcanoes, but he had never experienced one on the ice before. The building groaned around them, the ice catching the light as it moved under their skates. Only the years of skating prevented Yuuri from falling, but Viktor was not as lucky. The earth pitched suddenly, past what Yuuri had been expecting, and Viktor slipped backwards. The crack of his head hitting the ice was audible from where Yuuri stood.

“Viktor!” Yuuri skated recklessly forward, skidding to his knees where Viktor had fallen to keep himself from the same fate.

“I’m fine.” Viktor mumbled, speech slurred as he struggled to sit up. The building was shaking to the point of blurring Yuuri’s vision. Fear was creeping up in his chest, filling his arms with lead and his mouth with copper. The buildings in Hasetsu were built to withstand earthquakes, but this wasn’t a normal quake. With each passing second the shaking was getting more intense, to the point that Yuuri wasn’t sure if he could stand right now anyway.

A deafening crack echoed through the empty rink. Deep in the ice, a fissure was forming like a spider web. Another joined the first, shattering through the smooth ice like glass smashed by a rock. Pieces from the ceiling started to fall from the rafters. The building groaned sickeningly, beams popping out of their sockets with sounds like gunshots. The glass doors leading to the rink from the lobby shattered, adding another scream into the cacophony.

“We have to get out of here!” Yuuri yelled, tugging on Viktor’s arm. The Russian struggled to his feet, mainly supporting himself with his arms on the cracked ice. Yuuri and Viktor ran across the ice as fast as they could, digging their toe picks harshly into the ground and spur them forward. They crashed through the stands, completely foregoing blade guards in preference to getting out of the building as fast as possible.

The shaking was dying down a bit, but the building was still crumbling around them. The sunlight outside was getting brighter, getting closer, and Yuuri could feel the fear rising in his chest the closer he got. He was almost outside, almost safe from the collapse of the rink. He was pulling Viktor along behind him, too frantic to get outside to even care about the damage his skates were certainly taking.

Yuuri jumped through the doorway to the lobby right before it collapsed, crashing behind him with a deafening explosion that was no doubt the ceiling to the rink. The force of the fall pushed Yuuri to the ground. The world spun. Around him, walls shivered and crashed as an aftershock rocked the building. Viktor’s hand was clammy and tight in Yuuri’s own, gripping onto him like a lifeline as the world was being shaken around them.

Once the building stilled, and seemed to hold, Yuuri lifted his face from the ground. The lobby was not in good shape, but the walls were holding enough for them to make their escape. He pushed to his knees, grabbing Viktor’s elbow to pull him outside.

“Come on!” Yuuri pulled but was met with enough resistance to make him look back.

Yuuri’s breath caught in his throat. Viktor was laying behind him, face tied into a knot of pain, eyes squeezed shut and teeth gritting harshly. Sweat beaded around his forehead, dripping down his cheeks and to the floor. Yuuri refused to believe that there were tears mixing with them, but the wetness around Viktor’s eyes suggested otherwise. Viktor had not made it all the way through the doorway before it had collapsed, and a ceiling beam had caught him around the waist. The entire bottom half of Viktor’s body was trapped in a giant pile of rubble, completely hidden from Yuuri’s view. His top half wasn’t faring much better. The bricks above the beam had fallen heavily onto Viktor’s back, hiding practically everything but his head and arms from view.

“Viktor!” Yuuri didn’t realized he was yelling until Viktor’s eyes opened. His pupils were glassy with pain. Yuuri could barely move himself from the pain in his ribs from falling again, but he pushed towards Viktor anyway, ignoring the quickly failing integrity of the building. The bricks were easy enough to remove from Viktor’s back, but despite how hard he pulled at the beam at his waist, it wouldn’t move. Muttering curses, Yuuri pulled with all his weight, thrilling when the rubble moved just a tiny bit.

Ice filled his veins when Viktor let out a scream. The rubble had shifted enough to properly crush Viktor’s legs beneath them, pulverizing them and slowly soaking the dirt and floor with blood.

“Yuuri.” Viktor mumbled through gritted teeth, fingers digging into the concrete floor to the point of turning white. He tried to sit up, then fell back to the ground unceremoniously.

“It’s ok, we’re gonna get you out of this.” Yuuri was getting frantic. He couldn’t move the beam again, unless he wanted to hurt Viktor more. He moved to pet the side of Viktor’s head, trying to clean off some of the sweat. Viktor looked up at him, eyes sharp with pain but fuzzy nonetheless. He managed to give Yuuri a smile, but the effect was ruined by the cascade of red that started dripping from the corners of his mouth.

Yuuri was going to throw up. There was no way this was happening. This couldn’t be happening. The blood from Viktor’s legs was pooling around their bodies, cold and out of place. Yuuri was crying hot tears, the salt mixing with the inky blood pooling at his knees. Why didn’t he leave when Viktor asked him to? This was all his fault. If it wasn’t for him, Viktor wouldn’t be trapped.

At a loss for what else to do, he started pulling bricks off of the top of the pile, throwing them to the side at a desperate attempt to unearth Viktor’s body. Debris was falling from the ceiling, dust spiraling up and making it harder to breathe. Yuuri worked faster, the rocks and wood and glass cutting into his hands. He was numb to the pain, to the blood rising to the surface, to the bile in his throat, and just kept digging. He had to get Viktor free, had to get him outside. They would be able to live through this.

“Yuuri, I love you.” Viktor murmured, sounding every bit defeated. He was crying, coughing weakly and spitting out more blood.

“Don’t you do that. Don’t you give up, I’m getting you out of here.” Yuuri was throwing materials as fast as he could, but more from inside the rink was sifting on top of it, erasing the progress he had already made.

“Yuuri,” Viktor reached and put a hand on Yuuri’s leg, making him pause and look down. The blood from the floor was soaking into Viktor’s hair, sticking it to his face. The tear tracks were painfully visible through the mask of dirt he seemed to be wearing, and Yuuri’s heart cracked inside his chest.

“Viktor, I won’t let you die here.”

Viktor reached and pulled Yuuri down, hands weaker than Yuuri could ever remember them. He kissed his lips softly, tasting heavily of copper. Yuuri suppressed a sob, his hands tangling into Viktor’s hair. Viktor drew in a ragged breath once they parted, exhaling harshly and flecking specks of blood onto Yuuri’s cheeks.

“I love you Viktor. So much it hurts.” Yuuri kissed Viktor’s forehead, making him smile. Viktor coughed again, then turned his head and vomited. Chunks like coffee grounds joined the existing blood on the ground, alerting Yuuri to the true extent of Viktor’s internal bleeding. Viktor collapsed onto the ground, eyes open and breath shallow.

Yuuri let out a single sob, petting Viktor’s hair and resting their foreheads together. He wasn’t sure how long they sat there, Viktor stuttering in air and Yuuri guiding him through it. Time wasn’t real anymore. There had never been enough of it anyway.

Eventually, half of the noises in the room stopped. Viktor let out a soft sigh, his entire body relaxing in a final moment of peace. Yuuri knew, in that one moment, that he no longer felt the pain of his damaged body, and he could be released with the gentle ease of falling asleep.

Viktor stilled. He no longer drew a shallow breath, nor did he exhale all at once like he had a few seconds ago. Yuuri opened his eyes, and saw Viktor’s looking back, but there was nothing behind them. Blank crystals gazed out of Viktor’s face in a false mask of life. Yuuri couldn’t stand it. He closed Viktor’s eyes, trying his best to keep the blood off his face.

Yuuri let himself sob then. He let the emotion crash over his body violently, pushing him onto the blood-stained floor. It was the worst pain he had ever felt, a pain of heartbreak combined with the loss of his best friend. He cried out, yelling into the cracked room like his heart was being ripped out of his chest. He screamed and cursed and wailed against the world, the unfair world that decided they wouldn’t have enough time to even get married. Viktor’s engagement ring glinted dimly from his lifeless hand, stained with his own blood and scratched from the building falling.

The building quaked gently around him, reminding him of where he was. Yuuri tried to control his breathing, just enough to sit up and get back to digging. He would get Viktor out, he couldn’t leave him like this. It didn’t matter if the building continued to fall around him again or if it took him all night to dig his lover out. He wouldn’t leave him. That was the promise he had made Viktor. He wouldn’t ever give up, not until his body collapsed and he joined Viktor where ever his soul had escaped to.

He dug until his fingers were raw and bloody. He dug until other people surrounded him and tried to pry him away. He dug until someone brought a shovel to dig Viktor out. Then he let himself be dragged away, away from his love and away from the promises of a life together that would no longer come true.

**Author's Note:**

> I felt like writing something sad, I'm very sorry. Any comments, critiques, love declarations, war declarations, and anything of the like is greatly appreciated, I love feedback! I hope you enjoyed!


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